Just wanted to chime in my 2 cents worth.
 
Having worked in both an after hours emergency only practice and a
"regular" daytime clinic, I have seen how emergency care is handled from
both sides of the fence so to speak.
 
The emergency clinic where I worked fully disclosed either over the phone
or when you walked in the office their exam fee.  This came about because
of non-payment issues they had had.  Then unless it was a super critical
case your animal was examined and then you were given an estimate to sign
before treatment would begin - with legal statements regarding if you
refused to pay.
 
I have never personally seen where they refused to do treatment unless
you paid first.  The closest that I have seen is asking for 50% of the
estimate before you left when your animal had to stay overnight.
 
Most emergency only type vet clinics don't really consider doing payment
plans because they usually don't know you and have no normal relationship
with you as far as your vet care goes.
 
As far as giving information over the phone...I believe the days of that
happening are well gone now.  Look at it this way - if the vet or his
staff told you "don't worry - he should be fine" without ever seeing your
ferret or pet and he died 2 hours later.  You would be livid and upset
because the doctor told you he would be fine and he wasn't.  This then
opens the doctors up for malpractice lawsuits which they don't want -
all because of the information they gave over the phone without seeing
your pet.
 
I think that more than getting caught between doing the right thing and
"show me the money" is that vets are like any other business - they want
to help you but they also have to make their business thrive when there
are people out there they are not willing or cannot pay for the services
they provide.  And as usual it is the people who follow the rules and do
the right things that suffer more for the few who don't.
 
Because the bottom line is vets run businesses too.  You wouldn't expect
a shoe store to let you take home a $200 pair of shoes with the promise
that you will be back tomorrow or the end of the week to pay for them.
And trust me, you would be hard pressed to find a small private practice
human doctor that would treat you if you didn't have insurance and
promised to be back to pay for it later if it was not life threatening
(and there were no laws saying they HAD to treat you as there are in
some states).
 
I am not out to justify the few vets who are after the money -- because
trust me there are some who are that way, just like every profession.  I
wanted to prehaps put a different perspective on what we are talking
about for the vets that are trying to make a living (not every vet owns
a big fancy car) but still provide the type of service you want.
 
Stephanie
[Posted in FML issue 4053]